Need help with Drying out Turkey leg

Submitted by Des Plaines on 10/19/04 at 10:19 PM. ( ) 67.163.33.126

I harvested a turkey recently and have dried out the tail feathers.

How do I dry out the Turkey feet?

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Dry them out or preserve them?

This response submitted by Derek Mynear on 10/19/04 at 10:54 PM. ( ) 67.171.205.26

Are you wanting to preserve them? If not, just let them dry out...BUT...if you want them to look nice and keep their form you will need to inject them with some preservative to keep them from shrinking. I'm not sure what you are trying to do here but they will "dry" on their own but they will also shrink up quite a bit.


Drying Turkey Feet

This response submitted by Des Plaines on 10/19/04 at 11:52 PM. ( ) 67.163.33.126


This is my first turkey taken with a bow. I am trying to pose the feet just as the turkey would have been walking. I Cut off the feet at the first joint, and propped them in an open stance by securing them in the open stance with masking tape.

If I let them dry naturally, I was told that they may shiffle up. I tried using a 50/50 mix of Borax and water and tried to inject the mixture into the feet but, the suringe kept getting clogged.

So, I am not sure how to try the feet and keep them looking halfway decent.

Can you help? Do you have a suggestion?


try

This response submitted by mike on 10/20/04 at 9:31 AM. ( ) 64.233.135.63

sounds like you shoulda asked this question before now. If they are already drying, the only hope is to try and rehydrate them by soaking/injecting some water then injecting with a taxidermy grade liquid injectable. Check out Van Dyke's or McKenzie. Also, try injecting in the foot pad first and see how that works.


All you need to do

This response submitted by Derek Mynear on 10/22/04 at 1:34 AM. ( ) 67.171.205.26

All you need to do is rehydrate the feet if they are drying out...that can be accomplished by injecting warm water into the feet...then you can either use a liquid injectable or latex/acrylic caulk ( which can be a pain to get through your needle)...however, I use caulk on most of my feet and it is possible...just takes patience and practice. Just make sure you use a larger gauge needle and the caulk WILL pass through it. This should minimize the shrinking. Hope this helps.


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